DVDRHD04 - burner replacement strategy yet?

[alleygator]

Long story short, I love this machine. I know I can replace the HD no problem. I got myself into a pickle by offering to put my grown niece's old home movies on DVD, but didn't count on doing almost 100 tapes and burning 4 copies of each DVD. Now she sent me a box of 8mm and in order to borrow a camcorder to play them, I had to agree to do their home movies also. I'm afraid I'm going to wear out the DVD drive, and that's the end of that. I wondered if anyone has come up with a working DVD drive replacement scheme yet.

[Guitarman]

There have been successful DVD replacements in the HD04. The best option is to put another LiteOn drive in the recorder. The only problem is that the new drive will not get firmware updates properly. Your best bet is to set aside the HD04 drive for when new updates come out. Put the drive back in the HD04 before doing a firmware update and then switch back to the new drive. If new firmware updates come out for the new drive, just place the new drive in your computer and flash it there.

Another thing to try would be to run an update with the new drive in. If it is a "system only" update, it should run and complete fine. If it is a "system & drive" update, it may do the system update, get to the drive part and bypass it. If so, you can leave the new drive in during updates. You will still need to update the drive on a computer.

[lordsmurf]

I have heard of people sticking SONY drives (actual SONY, not LiteOn rebrands!) and LITEON drives into LiteOn machines (and clones) and having some degree of success.

[alleygator]

Thanks to you all for assistance. Last question: where could I find an actual Lite-On drive? Sorry to be a pest, but I got myself hooked into burning tons of DVD's of old home movies for 2 family members. The HD I'm sure I can replace, but the burner is another issue.

BTW, I finally ran into the "merge failed due to disc error" situation. In thumbnail mode the directory was 5 pages long. After the error, all my editing I had done in most of the files was hosed, and I was unable to play them. Just FYI, I had heard about it, but finally ran into it myself.

[Guitarman]

alleygator,

You can get LiteOn drives at most computer stores or online.

Make sure you have the latest firmware installed. newer firmware versions fixed a lot of the split and merge problems. Once you update the firmware, make sure to erase (reformat) the HDD from the tools menu to fix any HDD errors.

[zleepy]

newer firmware versions fixed a lot of the split and merge problems

Above worked for me, when my iLO failed to read DVDs it made.

Also, when updating, do NOT the push "Play" button to start the update.
Just close the tray and follow the instruction on the TV screen.

When I use the "Play" button to close the DVD tray, I get a "Data Disc" message, instead of the update instructions.